Canadian Courts and Legislature Usurp Parental Authority

Americans should sit up and take notice of what’s going on in Canada. Not long ago, Canada legalized gay “marriage,” and since that battle has moved south, others probably will as well.

There is legislation being considered in Canada that would make spanking illegal, and Dr. Mohler reports on an instance where a 12 year old girl took her father to court and won. As the Globe and Mail [Toronto] reports::

First, the father banned his 12-year-old daughter from going online after she posted photos of herself on a dating site. Then she allegedly had a row with her stepmother, so the father said his girl couldn’t go on a school trip.

The girl took the matter to the court – and won what lawyers say was an unprecedented judgment.

Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier of the Quebec Superior Court ruled on Friday that the father couldn’t discipline his daughter by barring her from the school trip.

So if you want the government and the judges to tell you how you can and cannot parent your children, vote for the liberals who believe that government has all the answers this fall. These liberals seem to cluster in a certain political party here in the States. As Dr. Mohler notes:

The logic of this ruling is not limited to Canada. In 1970, Hillary Rodham, then a young lawyer (and later Sen. Hillary Clinton), wrote a law review article, “Children Under the Law,” in which she argued that minors should be treated as “child citizens” who should, under at least some conditions, be able to challenge their parents in court over parental decisions.

These are times when those who know their God need to stand firm and take action (Dan 11:32). We should pray and do everything we can to protect religious liberty–which includes the right to raise children according to the mandates of Holy Scripture–but if these liberties are taken away, we need the backbone to obey God rather than men and the wisdom to know what sacrifices are worth making.

I am reminded of John Bunyan, who was incarcerated for 14 years, away from wife and children, because he would not consent to stop preaching the gospel.

Let us pray, and let us raise an outcry against governmental intrusion into family business. Let the message to the government be clear: Get out of my house!

The government needs to limit itself to the aims stated in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.